A New Obamacare Mystery: How Many Uninsured People Signed Up For New Coverage?


The fine folks at HHS released some new data on Obamacare signups today. Quick stats: 8 million people signed up; 34 percent are under age 35; and 54 percent are female. But here’s the head scratcher:

Of the 5.45 million people who selected a Marketplace plan through the [federal exchange]….5.18 million (95 percent) applied for financial assistance and were required to answer a question about their health insurance coverage.  Of these 5.18 million who applied for financial assistance and selected in a plan, 695,011 (13 percent) indicated that they had coverage at the time of application.

So this means that on the federal exchange, about 4.5 million people signed up who were previously uninsured. If we figure a somewhat lower rate for the 2.6 million who signed up via state exchanges, you can add about 2 million to that number.

In other words, in total, the exchanges signed up about 6.5 million people who were previously uninsured. This is far, far higher than previous estimates of about 3 million or so. I’m not sure what to make of this given the amount of survey data that produced the smaller figure. Perhaps it’s a difference in what counts as uninsured? Or a difference in how people respond to pollsters vs. how they respond to an official question on an application. Hard to say. The full HHS report is here, and it acknowledges the different estimates but provides no guesses about why they vary so widely.

For now, just take this as a bit of a mystery. In a month or two we’ll probably have much firmer data on all this stuff.

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WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

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